Jean-Louis Mattei was Born on January 14, 1951 in Marseille.
 

He did his License at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Aix-en-Provence, section Classics (French, Latin, Ancient Greek). His book of poems entitled "Tahoum Tahoum" was published in Paris in 1970. He then obtained his master in 1972 and got the Certificate of Aptitude for Secondary Education (CAPES) the same year after three years of teaching internship in Lorraine.

He Came to Turkey in 1976 as a volunteer on active military duty and taught for two years in Tevfik Fikret High School in Ankara.

He acquired from his stay the love for Turkey, its people, its language and civilization.
After his momentary return to France, he returned to Turkey and taught two more years at the Lycée de Galatasaray.

He married in 1981 and settled permanently in Turkey with Nurcan, his wife, a Turkish academic specialist in French. They had a son, Timur, born in 1982.
He worked with his wife from 1988 to 2004 at the Faculty of Education at the University of Uludağ in Bursa as a foreign expert. He ensures there the courses of theme and translation from Turkish to French.

JL M knows many languages ​​like English, Provencal, Italian, Modern Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, German, Arabic, Persian, Hungarian and Armenian. He also learned the Ottoman, facilitating his research for History and Turkey Literature.

Besides his translations of Turkish poems published in the French magazine "Yeni Biçem", he published numerous articles and translations in journals such as "TÖMER Çeviri", "Varlik", "Frankofoni".

He also wrote articles in Turkish for the historical journals "Tarih ve Toplum" and "Toplumsal Tarih" from 1990 to 1998.

The Turkish Ministry of Culture published his translation of a book by Orhan Kemal in 1995: "The Inspector of Inspectors" (Müfettişler Müfettişi), followed by “the Crook” (Üçkağıtçı) in 2002 which was the second volume by the same author.

The ministry also published two more translations of plays by Hasan Erkek, "Vive la Paix" (1999) and "Threshold" (2001).

His first translation in French of a play by Haldun Taner, "The Epic of Kechan Ali" (Ali Keşanlı destanı) was in 1999.

Publishing also in Turkish, he published in collaboration with the poet Ahmet Necdet and Gertrude Durusoy "Alkoller" (1997, Editions Varlik), the first complete translation in Turkish of the Collection of Guillaume Apollinaire called "Spirits". Again with Ahmet Necdet, they also did the "Latin Şiiri Antolojisi” (Latin Anthology of Poetry) in 1998.

In 2004 he published at the Editions “Kitabevi of İstanbul” a Turkish book titled "Hazrat-i Ali Cenknameleri / Exploits warriors Lion of God, Ali) based on the manuscripts from the XVIII and XIX centuries.

In 2008, he resumed with the Bilgi Editions of Ankara: "Büyük Ermenistan Peşinde Ermeni Komiteleri" (Armenians in pursuit of the Great Armenia Committees) according to documents in Ottoman, Armenian, Russian and French.

In 2010, he published this time in France and in French "The mystical poet Pir Sultan Abdal Anatolian in 100 poems, bilingual" (Editions A Ta Turquie, Nancy),  the first book in French with that many translations of poems by Pir Sultan Abdal and many information about him.

In 2013, with the Editions L'Harmattan, the translation of the piece Hasan Erkek, "Threshold."

J.L. M. Was also published by the Isis Editions (İstanbul): "An Epic of Muslim Eba read in İstanbul Cafes around 1850" (2013 translation of the Ottoman French, studies and notes),

"Life of St. Theodore Sykéon (Beypazarı)" (2013, translated from Latin into French, studies and notes).

J.L.M still contributes actively to the magazine “Research about Bursa” (Bursa Araştırmaları Dergisi)

His first novel entitled "Ayni Toprağın Kardeşleri" (Brothers of the same Land) was published by the GiTa Editions (İstanbul) in 2013 and dealt with the events of 1915 in Turkey.


His Works: 

Brothers of the Same Land:
http://www.gitayayinlari.com/en/book/86-brothers-of-the-same-land